


And It Burns.

by dustoftheancients



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Dark, Drama, F/M, Force Bond (Star Wars), Reylo - Freeform, Reylo Charity Anthology, Sith!Rey, a curious string of destiny ben can't help but pull on, a fragile connection between two lonely people, light side!ben solo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-01
Updated: 2020-04-01
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:16:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23421556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dustoftheancients/pseuds/dustoftheancients
Summary: He recognizes her from his dreams. But, her eyes — They are not the same. They are not hazel. They are—Yelloweyes.He is a damned fool.
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 23
Kudos: 148





	And It Burns.

**Author's Note:**

> This was my fic submission to the [Reylo Charity Anthology Vol. II](https://reylocharityanthology.tumblr.com/), which is an amazing collection of art and I cannot recommend it highly enough. It was an honor to be a part of. I [drew a piece](https://dustoftheancients.tumblr.com/post/613058987003396096/timeless-and-cruel-sorcerer-guess-who-missed) for it as well, if any of you are interested.
> 
> In the past, this has been one of my least favorite au's — Darkside!Rey, Lightside!Ben. But to my surprise, I really enjoyed writing this. I hope you enjoy reading it.
> 
> This work has now been translated into Russian by the lovely [Smalta](%E2%80%9C). Read it [here](%E2%80%9C).

She is very small for a Sith.

Ben’s first thought when he finally comes face-to-face with the woman who has been stalking him for the better part of a year. The blazing double-bladed saber she brandishes is as tall as she is.

She has sharp golden eyes.

He recognizes her instantly.

From his dreams. From his nightmares. He has dreamed of this woman with chestnut hair and shrouded in dark robes. In some dreams, he has watched her kill. In others, she has watched her cry. But – the eyes. Her eyes have always been different.

The face in his dreams never has golden eyes. They are always—

“You’re the first Jedi I’ve seen in a long time,” She sneers. Coruscanti accent, he notes. It is strange to finally hear her voice.

“Lucky me.”

Her sneer twists. Dark energy spikes, pouring into the air around them from her small frame. Like ink in water.

There is only one way this will go. He unclips his lightsaber from his belt.

The girl’s eyes follow the movement. There is curiosity and excitement in her unnatural stare.

“Anakin Skywalker’s lightsaber,” she breathes, like she is impressed with it. Like it’s a relic of great importance – which, of course, it is. “Many Jedi have died on that blade.”

“And a few Sith,” Ben adds.

“I look forward to presenting it to grandfather.”

“You’re not going to get the chance.”

“You don’t sound very Jedi-like,” she frowns, looking almost disappointed.

He holds her gaze, giving his saber a loose spin in his grip. Welcoming the familiar weight in his hand. “Somehow I doubt you’re that familiar with Jedi.”

The girl presses her lips together. Ben can’t tell what she is thinking, but he knows he has rubbed up against something. Something sharp. Adrenaline rushes down his limbs, roaring in his ears. It’s been a while since he has fought someone else with a lightsaber. He has never fought against a double-bladed saber. He can’t help but anticipate it.

And she must sense that in him, because her expression shifts.

“Are you nervous?” Her lips pull into a forced smile as she flourishes her lightsaber, as if that will intimidate him. Dark energy wraps around her like a blanket. Her figure tenses.

“I’m sure you’d like me to be.”

She moves.

He moves.

Their blades crash in an explosion of white-hot energy. It is enough to blind them.

\---

There are no more dreams, after that first meeting. No more nightmares of a girl with brown hair who kills, or cries, or smiles—

Ben feels a loss. A deficit.

That surprises him.

His nights pass in warm, comfortable darkness. He never jolts awake in the middle of the night, sweat pooling in the crevice of his collarbone, a vague feeling of danger pricking at his senses. And when the morning comes, his head is empty of dreams.

\---

He almost kills her.

Not the first time they cross each other. The first time Ben is too occupied with the knowledge that this is the first classically trained Sith in a generation. And he tries too hard to get a better look at her eyes.

No, the first time is little more than a handshake.

It is their second battle where things become dangerous.

And it is the second battle that matters more to the Sith girl, because Ben has killed one of her men. From the tears streaking her cheeks, her top man.

It surprises him, because he hadn’t thought—

“Monster.” She spits.

He stares, chest heaving.

Bespin used to be one of his favorite planets to visit as a child. Now, he finds himself cursing the sky-bound cities that leave nowhere to go. The wind whips his hair around his face. The girl’s robes flap at her legs.

“Nice to see you again, too.”

“You killed him,” she seethes through gritted teeth. Her blades snap to life in her hand, and she points it towards him with obvious intent. “You killed him. Jedi aren’t supposed to kill, you’re supposed to be weak.”

Her presence in the Force is out of control. Strong, raging winds in the Force. All dark. All despair.

All loneliness.

Ben can’t help but reach for that thread, almost as if by instinct.

The Sith girl roars, breaking his concentration. She charges him with wild, uncontrolled sweeps of her saber. Ben falls onto the defensive, blocking her blows and using her momentum against her just enough to keep it from being an entirely one-sided fight.

She has already gotten better.

He breathes heavily, barely keeping up with the speed of her strikes. She leaves too many openings, makes too many sloppy moves, but swings so quickly that one slip-up is immediately covered by another strike. Ben can’t find a moment to turn the tide, to put her on the defensive.

Her mind is blind pain. She is aware of nothing but him.

She wants to kill him.

He senses it as clearly in his mind as if she had spoken the words.

It’s flattering, in a way. No one has wanted to kill him specifically since—well, since those pirates off of Trandosha he and his father had run into a few years back. Last time he would help his father with anything having to do with making credits.

That had been different. That hadn’t been personal. It had been—meaningless, in a way.

This is nothing like that.

The girl’s eyes only seem to glow even brighter with each frenzied strike, with every howl of frustration. She is like a wild animal. A wounded animal.

Feeling blossoms like a rotten fruit in Ben’s gut.

There is a familiarity to her pain. He has felt it–he has _felt_ it. He is stung by the sudden onslaught of feeling, of memories. The temple burning, Luke’s violently green blade buzzing over his ear. Children he had known for years turning against him, calling him traitor and dark and evil—

Feeling alone.

He knows that feeling.

How alone the only grandchild of the Emperor must be.

The Sith falters in her strike. Ben hurriedly covers his thought, pushes it out of his head.

But it’s too late.

She twists her face into a look of utter disgust. Her cheeks are still streaked with tears.

“Don’t pity me, Jedi,” she shouts, screams.

Ben, still breathing heavily, tries to cover up his momentary slip with a careless tone. “You are pitiful, that’s not my fault.”

She roars again and attacks.

“I will-kill-” she pants between every few swipes of her blade, gasping her threat with barely a voice, but with all the intent to kill nonetheless. “-Every last sorry member of the resistance-and I’ll save-” At this she looks up, makes eye contact. “-Your mother-for last.”

A spark of surprise, of fear, electrocutes his chest. For a moment, his breath catches.

How did she find out who his mother is?

He is not the only lightsaber-wielder running around. He has not been seen with Leia for years. Purposely. Force, he doesn’t even look like her, beyond the color of his eyes. It’s not common knowledge. They must have a spy—

She swings down and he catches her blade, shifting so that her blade locks with his. He presses down, using his greater height and strength to his advantage. The Sith, after so many frantic attacks, is tiring, and her stance bends under his weight.

Neither of them says a word.

Ben pushes against her, hard, and the Sith girl—for how powerful she is—cannot help but take a step back to maintain her footing. Then another. She growls at him, and he takes that moment to dislodge their blades. He steps around her as she tries to keep her balance. He swings his blade right and then down at an angle in quick succession. The first blow is easy enough for her to deflect, but it pushes her further off-balance. The second blow nearly gets her, but she is saved by falling on one knee. Stretching out her hand, she blasts him with the Force, knocking him off his feet and a good ten meters away.

Only, there is no ten meters away. Ben blasts past the edge of the platform they had been standing on, tumbling down the rounded edge towards the open air below.

Frantically, Ben tries to grab at the durasteel under his fingers, but it’s too smooth.

Damned Bespin.

He falls.

His lightsaber slips from his grasp.

Breath is stolen from his lungs. His heart freezes.

Then he slams onto the ground.

Pain electrocutes his body. For a moment, all he can do is gasp. Distantly, he hears his lightsaber land somewhere nearby.

He’s— _alive_.

Unbelievable.

Force, he thought he was a goner.

Then—

Ben rolls to his feet, barely avoiding the burning crimson blade that slices through the ground where his neck used to be. Pain pulses through his limbs, but he pushes it to the back of his mind. He doesn’t have time to find where his lightsaber landed; the Sith is on him in a moment, swinging her double-bladed saber. He dodges left, then jumps back, then ducks to the right.

There. He spots his lightsaber not far away.

He brings his arm up just in time to grab her forearm, stopping her downward swing. The girl drops her blade into her other hand. He calls his lightsaber into his outstretched hand. It’s in his hand and activated just barely— _barely_ —in time to block her blade.

It’s an awkward angle; he tries to dislodge her the best he can, pushing her away from him.

He swings this time, aching and tired of being on the defensive. The Sith meets his blows, but her blade is a bit slower, her blocks just a little bit weaker.

She is even more tired.

Ben pushes forward. The girl retreats by one step, then another, then another—

She opens her hand, and he knows she’s going to try and push him back with the Force again.

On reflex, he raises his hand to push her first.

He gets knocked back by another blast of the Force. This time there is less power in it, and it only knocks him back a meter or so. He tumbles more than flies, but it is all he can do to keep himself from slicing through one of his own limbs with his lightsaber.

It doesn’t take long to recover; Ben scrambles to his feet.

The Sith girl is nowhere to be seen.

Instinctively, he runs to the far end of the platform and peers over the edge.

She hangs by her hand, which has wedges between two panels of durasteel. By the angle and the blood streaming down her arm, he knows it is broken. She has lost her lightsaber. Even from his perspective above, he can see her grit her teeth. Tears streak down her cheeks anew.

And unlike when he fell, there is no platform underneath. The only thing below the Sith’s dangling feet is open air and orange clouds far below.

He can leave her, let the Force decide her fate.

Or he can use the Force and push her one more time, sending her to her death. Possibly ripping her arm to shreds, not that that would matter very much.

Ben’s lightsaber hums in his grip. The wind picks up around them.

She glances up the best she can. Strands of hair whip around her face, sticking to the wet skin of her cheeks. The glow of her yellow eyes seems to dim, somehow.

She opens her mouth, but only winches and cries out as her arm slips a bit.

In the Force, she feels less and less like a wounded animal, and becomes—simply terrified. He can feel her reach out to him, then back away, then reach back out, only to snatch her consciousness back once more.

She is terrified, and she wants to ask for help. She must be blinded by her fear.

The rivulets of blood streak down her shoulder. She closes her eyes.

Damn it all to hell, he is a sucker.

A _damned_ sucker.

Ben deactivates his lightsaber, clipping it to his belt and bending down on one knee. Reaching out, he calls down to her, “Can you reach my hand?”

Her eyes fly back open, but for a moment her wide-eyed, wild gaze remains unchanged. He repeats himself, and this time his words seem to cut through the fog of pain and terror in her mind, if only a little.

When she still doesn’t respond, he snaps. “Take my hand.”

“No,” She spits.

“Take my hand.”

“No.”

“Do you have a death wish?” He shouts.

The blood on her arm only amplifies the bite in her words. “Death is better than—”

Ben doesn’t allow her to finish. Using his outstretched hand, he focuses his power on lifting her up, wrapping the Force around her squirming form as best he can. It’s like wrapping his hands around a grease-covered speeder part—slippery and dirty. He can feel the edges of her darkness bleed into his power, pushing at him. Gritting his teeth, he pushes back.

He is no stranger to darkness.

He has met it before—in dark caves and cold space, in death and suffering and his own family.

But he has also overcome that darkness. What he feels in the girl—what power pushes against him and tries to invade his mind—is nothing more than a shadow.

She cries out when he lifts her up enough that her arm starts to shift in between the two plates of durasteel, slowly pulling it out. Ben uses the moment her pain distracts her and gets his arms around her free, uninjured arm, heaving her up the rest of the way with his own strength. With a grunt, he pulls her back onto the relative safety of the platform.

His actions are rough, and the Sith girl collapses with a whimper when he lets her go. Blood continues to run down her arm. She cradles it gingerly to her chest.

He stares at her, unmoving for a long moment. His gaze remains fixed on the blood, on the wound in her arm that goes to the bone. Blood gets on her clothes. After a moment, he remembers himself and backs a few paces away, although it is unlikely that-

Two old B-Wings fly by close to the platform, their engines snapping Ben’s attention away from the girl.

He glances back at the girl once more, but she has not moved from her spot on the ground. She is still bleeding.

Ben leaves.

\---

Space used to terrify him as a child. All that emptiness, stretching out for eternity. Every star, every planet a solitary island in the cold vacuum. And it was worse for starships.

As a child, Ben felt terribly alone in space.

He still feels alone.

Alone and very crowded with his own thoughts.

And – more than his own thoughts.

For a moment, the briefest, infinitesimal glimpse of something like pain flashes across his mind. His arm burns, but only for a moment. He hears something that he knows should be words, but are just jumbled sounds in the back of his mind. And then the rest of him _ignites_ —

The feeling, or vision, or connection—whatever it is—cuts off as quickly as it came on.

He stares out the viewport, into the vast blackness. Thoughtlessly, his hand goes to his right arm.

\---

Ben doesn’t see the girl for a while. It’s been at least a few weeks, although he’s lost track.

Mostly.

There’s a lot to keep him busy. His mother’s Resistance to help, occasionally. His father’s problems to fix, most of the time. He keeps Chewbacca company on a few supply-runs while his father and mother spend a total of three days together before his mother either kicks his father out or his father simply runs away again. It’s hard to tell which.

He hears nothing about a girl wielding a double-bladed saber.

Another week goes by.

And then another.

He cracks and asks his mother about it the next time he sees her on Nakadia.

General Organa, brows furrowed with a million worries, shoulders slumping with the weight of the galaxy, looks at him like she is surprised by the question. Like there are bigger things to worry about.  
“With any luck, she died on Cloud City. Or shortly thereafter.”

Ben doesn’t say anything.

Her gaze softens a bit, and she lays her hand on his arm. “The last thing this galaxy needs is an heir for the Emperor.”

“What if she’s alive?”

The General keeps her gaze steady on his. “Then you will confront her again, sooner or later. That I’m sure about.”

He nods. He has never told her about the dreams that used to plague him, but for a moment he is sure she knows of them anyway.

“How do you think he got an heir, anyway?” He asks.

“How has the Emperor gotten anything?” His mother returns dryly. “By killing what is good and corrupting what remains.”

\---

After his mother’s words, Ben waits to see the girl again.

He can’t help it; he won’t deny it.

He knows it will happen.

There is a sort of comfort in the knowledge.

\---

The girl is on Naboo. Ben only finds out because his mother comes to him after her people start dying in the swamps outside of Theed. Scouts put in place to spy on the Emperor’s home city. He volunteers to look into it; he doesn’t think too deeply on it, but he knows that he needs to be the one to go.

And when he does go, it doesn’t take long for him to find a small outpost in the swamps, half overtaken by weeds. And in front of the outpost, the girl.

Like she has been waiting for him.

“It’s been a while,” he says, unclipping his lightsaber from his belt. The hair on the back of his neck stands on-end.

For a long moment, the girl says nothing. Her weapon is already in her hands, a new lightsaber unlike the one she carried on Bespin. Clunky, inelegant. She holds it in her right hand. The wounds are long gone, but even from where he stands several meters away, he can see several scars stretching out from under the wrappings on her arm, thick and ugly.

“I’ve been waiting for you.” She finally speaks.

“Should I be flattered?”

She sneers at him. “Do you have any idea what you did to me?”

Ben doesn’t respond to her question. He doesn’t know how to respond. She is much calmer than on Bespin. More willing to talk. He finds himself exhilarated by the chance. He wants to know more about her. So, he asks her something else.

“What’s your name?”

The question throws her off more than he expects it to. She stares at him for several long moments.

“They call me Darth Kira.”

He stares. “No. What’s your _name_?”

She doesn’t look inclined to answer.

“I’m Ben,” he offers.

“Ben Skywalker.”

“Solo, actually.”

She furrows her brow. “That’s not what I’ve been told.”

He nods his head to the side. “Well, you’ve been given bad information, then.”

That doesn’t amuse her, but he sees a spark of curiosity in her eyes. Her stance remains unchanged, but she makes no move towards him, either.

“Fine. Solo, then.” The twist of her mouth tells him that she is not impressed. Then she adds, “The Jedi who kills.”

Ben mouth pulls into a frown, his brows furrow. He can feel himself stiffen. His grip on his saber tightens. He is sure she doesn’t know—can’t know—about his past, about the Jedi Temple, and his fellow pupils, and Luke. But her words still rub him the wrong way.

“Do you know what you did to me?” She goes on, and he doesn’t bother to answer. “You made the Emperor lose faith in me. And now I have to prove myself— _again_ —because of you.”

“You mean by saving you?” He fires back.

“ _Yes_. You no-good, murdering—”

“Look who’s talking.”

She points her weapon at him. “I’m not going to lose, Solo.”

He shifts into a fighting stance. “We’ll see.”

She takes the bait and moves to strike first.

This fight is not like the fight on Bespin. For one, there is no chance of either of them falling off a floating platform to their death. For another, it is much, much more difficult to maintain their footing.  
The swamp, it turns out, is its own party in this fight. It seems they take turns slipping in the mud or stumbling over protruding roots. It is the worst, most ungraceful fight he has ever had the misfortune to participate in.

He can’t manage to lock their lightsabers. He can’t get his footing enough to do so. The girl can’t dodge him without slipping in the mud.

It’s embarrassing how ridiculous this fight is.

The girl lands a lucky blow on his shoulder, only it is not a blow. She sinks the edge on her lightsaber into the meat of his shoulder, burning a hole straight through his flesh. The acrid smell hits him quicker than the pain does.

An animalistic howl rips from his throat and he responds by lunging himself at her. She doesn’t expect that, and he topples her to the ground with each. Mud envelops them like water, and both of their lightsabers slip from their hands. His wound burns like acid, both from her lightsaber and from the mud that gets in the wound. He cannot tell up from down, only that they are wrestling, and that the mud makes her too slippery to get a good grip on.

Still, he has the advantage; he is much bigger than she is, and heavier. It is relatively easy to press her further and further into the soft ground.

Then—she does the unthinkable.

She _bites_ him

Right on the arm.

His _mud-covered_ arm.

The revulsion he feels at this overcomes the sting of her teeth. He cries out and shoves her away from him.

“You’re disgusting,” he balks.

She spits, still on the ground, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. It serves to do nothing but smear the mud already on her face.

“So princely,” she pants, glancing around them. Probably trying to find her lightsaber. “And to think, you were the one who knocked us into the mud.”

Ben pressed his lips together. “And to think the Emperor’s heir is a rat.”

The only response he gets is an absent-minded shrug, but he barely makes note of it. Neither of them rises or attempts to continue their fight. They both turn their attention to the ground around them, trying to be the first one to find their weapon.

“Blast it,” she grumbles. “You are the most annoying Jedi I’ve ever met.”

“You’re not the worse Sith I’ve met.”

He can hear the roll of her eyes in her tone. “Shut it, how many Sith have you actually met?”

“You’d be surprised.”

She glances over at him, and he returns the look. It doesn’t feel like a stare down, but he feels that he cannot look away. He can feel her presence in the Force, but it feels wounded. Or perhaps simply scarred. Bruised. Just below the surface he can see shadows in the shape of men. Red blades bisecting people who she once called—

Crying in a cold, lonely room. Isolated. The stars seem so small, so far away. She aches, inside and out. She finally opens her eyes and they are glowing and yellow. Full of rage.

It’s too bad about her eyes. Before, they had been such a lovely shade—

“What are you doing?” She snaps, finally bolting to her feet. He blinks, then realizes what he was doing and pulls back into himself, shuts the walls of his mind up tight.

“I didn’t realize,” he mumbles to himself, pushing himself to his feet as well.

“Stop doing that,” she commands, clenching her hands into fists. “Stop reaching out—”

Embarrassment pools in his cheeks. “You’re awfully chatty today. Why?” he says for lack of anything else.

Her jaw snaps shut. He regrets his words instantly.

“Change of mind?” She sneers. “Decided to kill me after all?”

Ben furrows his brows—then he understands.

She feels— _safe_ —enough to talk to him. Saving her on Bespin, it must have made her think—she isn’t operating on the assumption that he will kill her. Or even that he wants to.

The realization softens something in him.

The sting in his shoulder nearly ruins the feeling. She doesn’t play fair, expects to be allowed to lash out at him and to not worry about him lashing out in turn. Still, he finds he doesn’t want her assumption to change.

He glances down at the scars poking out from under the wrapping on her arms and swallows. “What’s your name?”

The girl stares, fists still clenched.

“I told you mine.”

“So?”

He gingerly grasps his shoulder. “We’re even now, you and I. Except for your name.”

There are rumblings in the distance. The outpost is mobilizing. He has to leave, and quickly. One wounded, mud-covered man cannot fight off a whole outpost’s worth of soldiers. Even if it’s him.  
A few paces back, he finds his saber in the Force. Right next to it is the Sith’s lightsaber. He calls both weapons to him. His grandfather’s lightsaber lands safely in his right hand, and the girl’s in his left. She stiffens like a statue when she sees that he has not only found their lightsabers, but has both of them. 

He tosses it to her without ceremony. She catches it and ignites it in one swift motion—but she stays where she is. Her stance is tense, on edge. She frowns.

The sounds are coming from behind her. It will be simple enough to run, put some distance between him and the outpost. As long as he can lose this mud-caked Sith with the glowing eyes. Even in a swamp as treacherously slippery as this one, he is confident he can outlast her in an outright sprint. Probably.

After a long stretch of silence, he speaks.

“I’m drawn to you,” he admits. “I don’t know why. But I would like to know your name.”

Her frown deepens.

Ben knows. She won’t—

“I’m Rey.”

\---

Rey.

It’s a nice name. A little plain. 

Although—hell, _Ben_ is plain.

\---

Rey.

\---

“Is she his granddaughter by blood?”

General Organa looks confused. “Who?”

“Darth Kira.” Ben doesn’t tell anyone her true name.

Rey feels like his, somehow. His secret.

The General sighs and puts down her datapad. “How’s your shoulder?”

“Healing.”

She is a mother of a boy who has never been fully truthful about his wounds, so she gets up out of her seat to check under his bandages. “They’re keeping it in bacta pads, that’s good.”

“Mother,” he sighs, but lets her complete her inspection.

“What? I’m not allowed to make sure my son’s shoulder is healing alright?” Her tone is teasing, but she cannot hide the exhaustion behind it. The Resistance is struggling; he can tell from her voice alone.

He makes sure that his bandages are still in place, just to have something to do. Then he looks back to his mother.

“What do you want me to do?”

His mother sighs once more and returns to her seat, slowly lowering herself onto it. Age is getting to her. She knows it. And it hurts a little to see. There’s no other fighter left in the galaxy like his mother. No one to replace her. What will become of the New Republic when she is gone, he wonders.

He can’t imagine sticking around to find out.

“Ben, I want you to rest.”

He shakes his head. “No. There’s more I can do.”

“Your mind’s unfocused.”

“No, it’s not.”

She gives him a look.

“Wondering about Darth Kira’s lineage hardly counts as focused. It hardly matters where her blood is from, if it’s truly from that monster. The Emperor has great talent at turning every living thing around him evil.”

“He didn’t turn Luke.”

General Organa’s expression becomes cool, shielded. She gets this way every time Luke is brought up. “You’re right,” she says. “And that’s why the Emperor killed him, in the end.”

“But it took a lifetime.”

“What are you getting at?” She demanded, controlled as ever. But he could feel her agitation in the Force.

Ben clenches and unclenches his fist. He takes a breath. “Maybe there’s time.”

She shakes her head, rubs her eyes with her fingers. Then she asks, “For what?”

“For-” But he doesn’t finish his sentence. He shakes his head. After a moment, his mother looks up at him. She waits for him to finish. She waits for a long time.

\---

Ben stands facing the dark eternity past the viewport.

He knows he felt her the last time he was here; he is sure it was her. The phantom pain in his arm, and the power that seemingly engulfed him in flames—

After Naboo, after the small glimpse in her mind—it was her. He knows. He can sense it, like she is linked to him somehow.

How often does she get tortured after being wounded, he wonders, and then he closes his eyes. Why does it even matter?

It doesn’t.

Fool, he tells himself. He cannot allow himself to feel like he owes her some sort of—protection debt, as ridiculous as that sounds. Or responsibility. He is not responsible for her. He saved her life once. He is not responsible.

She burned a hole in his shoulder. A hole that is still healing.

And her eyes—

They are not the eyes from his dreams.

She is not the same.

_Yellow_ eyes.

He closes his eyes and manages to silence his mind.

Mostly.

\---

When it first happens, there is little more than a shift in the air. Just the tiniest tilt of the world to signal that this exact moment will change—

\---

When she first sees him, her eyes go wide as saucers. She is half turned away from him, holding a datapad. Completely at ease—or, at least, she was moments ago.

His expressions matched hers. Shock. Disbelief. Both of their hands go to their lightsabers. Ben keeps his hand hovering over it; Rey drops the datapad and unclips her lightsaber.

“What in the Force—how are you here?” She demands. She looks like a cornered animal.

Ben looks around, but he sees nothing of where she is. All he can see is Rey.

“Where are you?” He asks. Every few seconds he hears something like an echo of a ship—but not the ship he is on. Perhaps it’s from her end-

“You’re in my mind?” She sounds incredulous, and slightly panicked. “Get out.”

He raises his hand as if to keep her calm. After a moment, he says, “I’m not the one doing this.”

“You have to be,” she insists, and her tone tells him she says it more to insult him than to make an actual accusation.

“I’m not. What is it like on your end?”

There is no answer. He glances away for one moment, and she is gone.

\---

She is gone, but he feels that tether in the Force grow stronger.

\---

Rey’s appearances are not connected to him calling her or reaching out to her. He establishes that early on when she appears several more times over the course of a week or so. He can admit that he wonders where she has been.

He wonders for himself. He wonders for his mother’s Resistance.

She doesn’t say much, the first time and then a few times after, like she’s trying to make a show of not cooperating. He obliges. He doesn’t particularly want to speak to her in any case when one look can tell him that her only words to him would be somewhere along the lines of, _stay away from me_ , or, _you damned Jedi_.

But he watches her.

It’s a sort of rhythm they fall into. Ben doesn’t get—comfortable, per se, having his life invaded far more than he asked for—but he gets used to it.

Rey starts talking to him, a little.

\---

“Why do you keep doing this?” She demands. To him it almost sounds like a pout.

“Doing what?” He glances up from the star charts he is studying, but doesn’t break his concentration. 

After a moment of silence, he sets the star charts down and gives her his full attention. She looks at him like she is exceedingly unhappy to have to spell it out. “This—between us. You keep trying.”  
“Trying to what? Have a civil conversation with you?”

“I don’t want to talk to you.”

He lets the muscles around his mouth ease, just a little. Despite her tone, he knows that she must not hate seeing him as much as she used to; she used to not speak a word to him. “I don’t think that’s true, Rey.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“Why not?” He returns, lifting his arms a little in a quasi-shrug. “It’s your name.”

“My name is Darth—”

“Kira, yes, I know.” He finishes for her. “That’s not a name, Rey. It’s a title.”

She crosses her arms, looking distinctly unamused and more than a little childish. “Fine, Then. If you’re going to be that way, then I demand that you call me by my title.”

“No.”

“You’re not special,” she bites back, fists at her sides. “This connection we have—this _curse_ —doesn’t change anything. It means nothing.”

Ben rolls his eyes. “You sound like a youngling—A _spoiled_ youngling.”

Rey tilts her chin up, furious and defiant, but doesn’t respond. For a few moments, Ben thinks he has won.

Then she closes her eyes and sits on the floor. He watches her for a moment, unsure of what—

She blinks out of his vision. The connection goes infuriatingly silent on her end, and try as he might he cannot reach back out to her.

\---

Ben reaches out. It’s not the same as the natural connection that brings them before the other, reflecting their images across the galaxy, but it’s something. Or—it would be.

She blocks him, and he is as alone in the darkness of space as he always has been.

\---

Still, he waits.

\---

But—just once, he feels a tug on her end. A gentile, tiny thing. He barely notices it. And then—it’s not just once.

He feels her all the way across the galaxy.

\---

Rey’s presence wakes Ben up. He shoots up in bed, heart pounding in his chest even though he already knows what he’ll see.

She sits in the middle of the room, legs crossed, the viewport to her left.

There is a bacta patch secured at the crook of her neck. Ben can’t take his eyes off it.

He calls out to her.

She opens her eyes.

In his dreams, they had always been hazel.

But those were dreams. Rey’s eyes shine the same unnatural shade of yellow that they always do.

Something is wrong. He can feel it as much as see it. He is out of bed in an instant, and in front of her in the next. She watches him the whole time, and stands to meet him when he gets close. She looks as if she has not slept in a long time.

“I think,” she speaks slowly, chooses her words carefully, “that the Emperor knows that I have a connection to someone.”

Ben can’t help but furrow his brow. She says it like it’s some great and terrible secret. Like there is a connection between the two of them, and it is significant. He doesn’t bother to point out that the last time she saw him she had spewed the opposite at him.

He works his jaw, unsure of what to say. A stab of something sharp hits him in his gut, but he does his best to ignore the feeling.

“Is it dangerous for you?” It’s the most neutral question he can stand to ask.

“Yes,” she says simply.

He studies her face, his expression pulling. “Are you going to leave?”

For a moment, she does not answer. Then she breaks eye contact and looks down, but only for a moment. “I told you this was going to bring trouble.”

“Rey. Are you going to leave?”

She still does not answer his question. He steps closer, so that she has to crane her neck back to maintain eye contact. There are dark circles under her eyes.

“You can come here,” he says.

And then he realizes what he said.

Rey’s eyes widen. After a moment she collects herself and sneers a little. “That’s not funny, Ben.”

He shakes his head. “I’m not joking.”

“I’m Sith—”

“You don’t have to be.”

That loses her, if he ever even really had her. She scoffs outright at that and turns from him. “You damned fool Jedi. You all think you can solve all the problems in the galaxy when you’re the ones who made them in the first place.”

“That’s not fair.”

“Sith don’t deal in fair,” she points out.

Neither of them speak for a long moment.

“I’m going to try and sever it,” she says, finally. “This...Connection.”

Ben doesn’t understand all the rotten feelings that blossom in his gut at her words, but he does understand the anger. “Do you really think you can?”

“Yes.”

Stubborn.

“No, Rey, you can’t.” he moves around her so that they are facing each other once more. “I didn’t create this and you didn’t create this. You can’t just cut off a connection in the Force.”

She looks up at him and for a second, he is certain she is about to vow to kill him to rid herself of their connection—but she doesn’t. Instead, she says, “Then I’ll just get rid of it.”

He stares at her. “That’s not possible.”

She stares back, lifting her chin. “I have to do something. I can’t just—wait to die.”

And she will die. Or he will. Or they both will. Ben knows it as surely as he can see her standing in front of him. The Emperor will not let something like this continue unchecked. What are two more deaths among trillions? The Emperor would certainly jump at the chance to kill another Skywalker.

But, his heir? He isn’t sure.

“I won’t let anything happen,” he promises. Like he isn’t a Jedi and she isn’t a Sith, like they aren’t lightyears away speaking by way of the thin connection stretching between them. Like they aren’t—

“You can’t promise that.”

She doesn’t sound angry as he expected. So, he pushes forward and takes a chance. He doesn’t know what leads him to do it. He only knows that he wants her to trust him.

Ben reaches out.

Find that the vein in the Force that connects the two of them is stronger than he thought.

Slowly, he moves to take her hand. She watches like she doesn’t know what he is doing, and he can imagine what she is thinking; Force connections don’t work like that, they can’t be that strong—  
He brushes the back of her hand with the pads of his fingers. His fingers slowly move around the side of her hand, into her palm, up to her wrist. To the edge of the wrappings that cover her arms. Her skin is soft. The fabric, too, is softer than expected. He barely notices.

Her eyes—

Yellow, but not glowing. Not like before. When he looks at them, for the first time since his last dream of her, of this Sith girl who has plagued his unconsciousness for years—he thinks, _beautiful_.

“Ben,” she whispers, barely more than breathing. Like she knows what he knows.

Their connection.

He swallows.

Touching her, it feels tragic. It feels like—

Like two stars collapsing into each other.

It scorches his heart.

**Author's Note:**

> [Tumblr](https://dustoftheancients.tumblr.com/)


End file.
